NAVAL BASE VENTURA COUNTY, POINT MUGU, Calif. - The Marine Corps won the 2001 Armed Forces Triathlon Championship here June 16 in the face of 58- degree water temperatures, rough surf and overcast skies.

WASHINGTON - The fiscal 2002 DoD budget request concentrates on service members, who would receive at least a 5 percent pay raise, further reductions in out- of-pocket housing expenses, and better housing and facilities.

WASHINGTON - Equal employment opportunity discrimination complaints can take weeks, months and even years to resolve. In fact, the average life of a complaint can be three to five years. But there is a way to address and resolve workplace disputes within hours: It's called "alternative dispute resolution."

WASHINGTON - Diversity in the federal work force is a government goal. To DoD managers grumbling about how hard it is to find employees who could help them meet the challenge, Renee Coates might say, "Grow your own".

WASHINGTON - DoD's new military and civilian personnel management chief said he is working to implement President Bush's budget proposals to improve service members' pay, housing and retired health care.

FORT BELVOIR, Va. - The United States isn't under the constant threat from communism that the last generation dealt with. Instead, we're dealing with less traditional threats -- terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, computer network attacks.

WASHINGTON - Computers and the Internet deliver a world of information that enriches the lives of many disabled people, but they also create challenges that DoD, other government agencies and the private sector must do more to solve.

WASHINGTON - Hollywood has elevated the spy story to a cliché. A megalomaniac steals U.S. secrets and a U.S. agent fends off an army of goons as he retrieves the secrets, gets the girl and saves the world, all in two hours.

WASHINGTON - The American public holds the military in high regard, but "the propensity to serve is very low," retired Adm. David Jeremiah, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters June 13 while discussing the far- reaching review of quality-of-life and morale issues he led at the request of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

WASHINGTON - Perfecting an architecture for joint forces command and control is key to transforming the U.S. military, said the chief of the transformation review panel set up by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

WASHINGTON - As Father's Day approaches, I'm reminded of my father and his proud service in the Navy during World War II. I remember my experiences growing up in a Navy family. We moved quite a bit when I was young, and there were times when my father's duty aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean took him away from home for long periods. But we knew we were supporting him in work that was important to our country. Later, during my own service in the Navy, I learned, as my father had, what it means to serve your country with the support of a dedicated family.

WASHINGTON - Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said he and Russian counterpart Sergey Borisovich Ivanov discussed missile defense and a broad range of other issues during discussions June 8 at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told NATO defense ministers here June 7 that the trans-Atlantic alliance must prepare now for future threats to international peace and stability.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - The United States will build and deploy a ballistic missile defense system, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said June 7 to defense ministers gathered NATO headquarters here.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Soviet troops aren't planning to crash through the Fulda Gap into the heart of Europe, and the United States doesn't expect to be attacked by thousands of nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles fired from Russia.

WASHINGTON, June 4, 2001 - Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld left Washington June 3 on a weeklong trip to Europe where he will visit U.S. troops in Turkey and the Balkans and confer with senior foreign officials.

WASHINGTON - Since January, People, Ebony, Time, Sports Illustrated and other national magazines have been carrying colorful recruiting poster ads depicting members from different service branches with their families.

WASHINGTON - Some soldiers, airmen and sailors will find less money in their paychecks for awhile, thanks to a software glitch that overpaid them since January, Defense Finance and Accounting Service officials said.